


It's a Sickening of the Heart

by coffeeinallcaps



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Age Difference, Dom/sub Undertones, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Explicit Sexual Content, M/M, Manhandling, Power Imbalance, Praise Kink, Psychological Trauma, Secret Relationship, Self-Destructive Behavior
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-04-21
Updated: 2014-04-21
Packaged: 2018-01-20 07:16:04
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 12,137
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1501499
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/coffeeinallcaps/pseuds/coffeeinallcaps
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There’s no collision. No screeching tires, no crunch of metal folding in on itself. Stiles has to pull over to breathe through the overwhelming waves of disappointment and relief that crash through him, and that’s how Rafael McCall finds him, with his head clenched between his knees, fingers buried in his hair, trying and failing to suck air into his burning lungs.</p><p>In which Stiles, struggling to cope with the aftermath of his possession, finds what he didn’t know he was looking for in his best friend’s dad.</p>
            </blockquote>





	It's a Sickening of the Heart

**Author's Note:**

> Check the end notes for specifics and more elaborate warnings.

Wryly enough, the Nogitsune leaves a void.

It sits in the center of Stiles’ chest, right below his heart— a dull, thudding emptiness. It weighs down his diaphragm and it makes him feel sick, every morning when he wakes up he feels sick.

He also feels: heavy, guilty, confused, agitated, and, most of all, furious.

He doesn’t mean to, but he can’t control it. One moment he’ll be hugging his dad and the next he’ll feel like he needs to punch a fucking wall. (More often than not, he does.) He can’t stop lashing out at people— his dad, Melissa, Scott. But the thing about them is that they just take it, look at Stiles all understanding, eyes soft, and.

Isaac is a more satisfying target. When he’s picking a fight with Isaac Stiles forgets about the aching knuckles of his right hand, the lump in his throat that doesn’t go away even when he’s dry-heaving above the toilet. It only goes away when he’s picking fights and once he realizes this he can’t stop. He can’t stop, doesn’t stop, doesn’t want to stop, and he feels erratically triumphant when one afternoon Isaac finally snaps, lashes out for real, the pain blooming down Stiles’ face hot and delicious. Merciful.

When he comes to, everyone is shouting. Isaac is standing in the middle of the room, face flushed, claws out; Kira and Lydia have positioned themselves in-between him and Stiles. Scott is cradling Stiles’ head, alpha red eyes trained on Isaac.

 _Chaos_ , Stiles thinks, _strife, pain_ , and abruptly he gags. He feels like he’s choking, on bandages, on fury, on guilt, and he doesn’t deserve the protective warmth of Scott’s hand on his cheek, doesn’t deserve the girls coming to his defense, doesn’t deserve any of it. Any of them.

After the incident with Isaac, he does his best to channel his frustration in other ways. He starts sipping from his dad’s whiskey in the morning, before breakfast, to make his throat burn and his eyes water and his stomach turn. Pain, he thinks. He goes running for the first time in months, runs until his legs give out and he finds himself clawing at dry earth, throwing up his lunch into the leaves. That evening in the shower he fingers himself so hard he cries.

One day he finds a pack of cigarettes in the cafeteria, almost full, and after school he drives to the preserve and smokes them one after another without allowing himself a break. He lights every next cigarette with the smoldering tip of the previous one. The sides of his fingers feel gritty and everything burns, his throat, his chest. The skin of his ankle when he snuffs out the last cigarette on the jut of bone there. His eyes.

He drives home after dark and of course he does see the lights change but the thing is, he doesn’t care. He feels sick and heavy and guilty and confused and agitated and _furious_ , and fuck the red light, fuck the jeep, fuck the other driver, see if I care.

There’s no collision. No screeching tires, no crunch of metal folding in on itself. Stiles has to pull over to breathe through the overwhelming waves of disappointment and relief that crash through him, and that’s how Rafael McCall finds him, with his head clenched between his knees, fingers buried in his hair, trying and failing to suck air into his burning lungs.

Stiles doesn’t look up when McCall opens the car door, says something – Stiles can’t make out the words over the roar of his heartbeat in his ears – and then shuts the door again. Next McCall is folding his tall body into the passenger seat. He doesn’t say anything else, just places his hand on Stiles’ neck and waits.

The hand feels big, warm. Heavy. Its thumb moves back and forth across Stiles’ skin with slow, rhythmic strokes that are infuriating and comforting at the same time. Stiles’ head is pounding. His eyelids feel dry, cracked. He sits up and rubs them with his palms. His face is wet; he wipes it on his sleeve.

McCall hasn’t moved, hasn’t spoken. His hand is still resting on the back of Stiles’ neck. Stiles can see his dress pants from the corner of his eye, the immaculate suit jacket, the laminated FBI card around McCall’s neck. Fucking show-off. What an asshole. He smells good, too. The warmth of his palm is starting to leak down Stiles’ spine and crawl up to his cheeks. A weak shiver ripples through Stiles’ shoulders.

“You all right, kid?” McCall asks then, and the anger coils and flares up.

“Get out,” Stiles says, shaking the hand off. He doesn’t sound as forceful as he’d like to; his voice is nasal with tears, scratchy with smoke. His chest is heaving. He tries again. “Get the fuck out of my—”

The next thing he knows his face is pressed flat against those dress pants, one of his arms twisted behind his back. Stiles gulps down a wet noise of surprise. He can smell McCall more strongly down here, and it’s enough to paralyze him for one long second.

“You need to calm down,” McCall tells him in an indifferent voice. “I’m not gonna let you drive in this state.”

“Let me go,” Stiles says, struggling against McCall’s hand on the back of his head. McCall pushes down harder. He’s not being careful about it, not treating Stiles like he’s fragile. An animalistic noise bursts up from Stiles’ throat. “Let me _go_ , fuck, get the fuck off me, you fucking—” He twists too hard, a blinding flash of pain shooting through his shoulder, and he gasps, “ _Fuck_.” His eyes are watering again.

“Calm down,” McCall says evenly. “You’re hurting yourself.”

“ _You're_ hurting me,” Stiles spits at him. “I was fine before you materialized in my fucking car.”

“I doubt that. You smell like a fucking ashtray. Have you been drinking too?”

“Fuck you. You’re a piece of shit.”

McCall huffs, amused. “That’s it, kid. Let it all out.”

He sounds neither worried like Scott nor angry like Isaac, neither defeated like Stiles’ dad nor pitying like Lydia. Stiles wants to scream. It’d feel like giving in, though, so he doesn’t. Instead he draws in a shuddery breath, which hurts, so he draws in another one, another one.

He lies there with his head in McCall’s lap, breathing until his lungs stop hurting as much. By that time McCall has let go of his arm. His other hand is still weighing down Stiles’ head, fingertips rubbing against his scalp in small circles. Stiles is half-hard. He doesn’t know when he started crying but when he sits up, McCall’s hand sliding away, his face is wet again.

He drags his sleeve down his face. McCall is looking at him. His gaze is too intense so Stiles lowers his eyes, looks at McCall’s thighs, his hands. The broad thumbs, the short clean nails, the dark hair on his coarse-skinned and muscular wrists disappearing into the cuffs of his shirt. Stiles suddenly, inexplicably, itches with the need to touch, so he does. He reaches for the hand closest to him and slides his fingertip down the side of McCall’s index finger, curls his hand around it, says, hoarsely, without really knowing why, “Let me blow you.”

McCall jerks his hand away. “Stiles,” he says. “No.”

“C’mon,” Stiles says, wiping his face again. “I’ll be real good, I promise— just tell me how to—” He surges forward. McCall’s hand snaps shut around his wrist like a vise.

“Stop this,” McCall says. “Jesus. You’re fucking—”

“Please,” Stiles says, “please,” and he’s pushing their mouths together, desperate, and he hates himself for it, hates his mouth for being wet with tears, hates McCall for grabbing his chin and yanking it sideways, for forcefully shaking his head and saying, voice sharp, “ _Stiles_. Pull yourself together. Don’t make me handcuff you.”

Stiles slumps back in his seat. “I’m sorry,” he says. “Fuck. I don’t know what— why— I’m sorry, okay.” He covers his face with his hands. His heart is pounding. He’s still hard. He’s starting to feel sick again.

McCall drives him home. Stiles doesn’t ask how he’s planning to get back to his own car. Doesn’t say anything, just leans his forehead against the window and closes his eyes and pretends to be asleep. Pretends his stomach doesn’t go hot when something is folded around him, something that’s warm and heavy and smells like comfort.

Maybe he does fall asleep after that.

“I probably shouldn’t ask,” McCall says to Stiles’ dad when they’re standing on their porch.

“Probably best if you don’t,” Stiles’ dad says, pulling Stiles in for a hug. He gently lifts the suit jacket from Stiles’ shoulders and hands it back to McCall. “Thanks, though.”

“No problem,” McCall says, eyes on Stiles. “Take care.”

Later, in bed, Stiles wishes he’d struggled more, wishes for scratches and scraped elbows and rings of angry purple around his wrists. Instead he feels at his tender shoulder until he finds the spot where it hurts the most. He presses down on it, grinds his knuckles against it, digs his nails into the skin. The next day at school he keeps sliding his hand into the collar of his shirt and pressing down on the bruise to help him through the hours. No one says anything about it.

 

* * *

 

The bruise lasts three days. Stiles makes it through one more day after that. Then, around midnight, once his dad is asleep, he hacks into the BHPD network from his laptop and extracts McCall’s current address from it.

He’s had a couple of beers – he doesn’t know how many – from the six-packs he stole a while ago, a few sips of whiskey, but he figures it doesn’t matter much. He figures he’s pretty much sober, until he’s stumbling up the stairs of McCall’s apartment building on the outskirts of town, until he has to lean his forehead against the wall and wait for the dizziness to die down before he knocks.

McCall opens the door in his shirtsleeves. He looks at Stiles and sighs, then glances down the hallway. Left, right. He doesn’t seem surprised to see Stiles at all. “Did you drive here?” he asks. One of his hands is already on Stiles’ shoulder. The tips of the index and middle finger of his other hand are pressing against the side of Stiles’ throat, right below his jaw. Checking his pulse, Stiles realizes belatedly. He stands there and blinks. Shivers. His eyelids feel heavy. He didn’t realize how tired he was until right this moment.

McCall frowns, touches Stiles’ forehead with the back of his hand. “Your skin is freezing.”

Stiles is almost always freezing ever since—

He shakes his head. “Aren’t you gonna invite me in?” he says, brushing McCall’s hands off and pushing past him. McCall lets him.

The apartment is bare, impersonal. Standard-issue furniture, few belongings strewn around. “Nice place,” Stiles says mockingly, letting his fingers trail along the top of the cabinet next to the door. When he looks at his hand he can feel bile rise in his throat, so he swallows, balls his hands to fists and turns around abruptly. The desk in the corner is a mess of case files and paper; the bed in the other corner is neatly made.

“A little spartan for my tastes,” Stiles says. He laughs, but it doesn’t sound genuine to his own ears.

McCall, who’s standing next to the cabinet, shrugs. His face is impassive. He has closed the door but he hasn’t bolted it. Stiles doesn’t know what to make of that. His chest feels tight. He wanders through the room, glances into the kitchen. Some dirty dishes. An expensive-looking coffee machine.

“The fuck are you still doing here, anyway?” Stiles asks McCall over his shoulder. “In Beacon Hills, I mean. Last time I checked not even your own freaking son wanted you around.” He adds, “Everyone in this town kind of hates your guts, you know.”

“I’m aware,” McCall says dryly.

Stiles drifts to the fridge. There’s not much in there. No beer. He turns on his heels. There’s a bottle of red wine on the kitchen table, but before he can start toward it McCall is already hovering in the doorway with his hands pushed loosely into his pockets, saying, “Don’t even think about it.”

“Yeah?” Stiles says, jutting out his chin. “Or what?”

“I’ll drive you straight to the station this time,” McCall says.

“Handcuffed?”

“If needs be.”

“You said you’d handcuff me last time,” Stiles challenges him. “You didn’t.”

“I said I’d handcuff you if you didn’t get your shit together.”

Stiles scoffs. He can feel his heartbeat in his throat. It’s going too fast. When he walks to the table he stumbles, has to grab onto it to stay upright. The bottle of wine sways but doesn’t topple over.

McCall is still leaning against the door frame. “Stiles,” he says. “What are you doing you here?”

“Seriously?” Stiles says. “You haven’t managed to figure that out?” The words keep rising in his throat like the bile from before. Spitting them out feels a lot better than swallowing them down. “Man, I don’t even know why I’m surprised. Of course you failed the admission test of the Behavior Analysis Unit. I mean, they do have you cleaning up shit in Beacon Hills of all places.”

“I asked you a simple question,” McCall says calmly. “You gonna answer it? Or would you like me to introduce you to the kinds of coercive tactics they don’t show you on CBS?”

Stiles shrugs one shoulder. “I think you know why I’m here,” he answers, reaching for the bottle.

McCall has him pressed up against the wall within seconds. One of Stiles’ arms is twisted behind his back; his legs are kicked apart, McCall’s hip jammed against the base of his spine to keep him in place. McCall is squeezing his neck. Like that night in the car, he’s not being gentle at all. Pain blooms everywhere his body is touching Stiles’. Pain, and something else.

“So we’re doing this again, huh,” Stiles says once he’s caught his breath. His voice sounds shaky, but he struggles on. “Is that a gun in your pocket, or—”

“Those are handcuffs,” McCall interrupts him.

“Kinky,” Stiles says. “You gonna put them on me this time, Agent McCall?” McCall doesn’t respond, so he continues, pulse racing, “Oh, is that doing it for you? Me calling you Agent McCall? Because—”

“Kid,” McCall says, and he sounds maddeningly unaffected. “Can you do us both a favor and drop the tough guy act? It’s clear you’re way past breaking point.”

Stiles closes his eyes. In this position, McCall’s height is overwhelming. McCall is everywhere, enveloping him from behind and above, from both sides, broad chest and long strong limbs and body heat and smell everywhere and it’s too much, it’s not enough.

He isn’t really sure what he wants to achieve by trying to whip his head backward. Maybe he wants McCall’s mouth on his neck, McCall’s hand groping for his crotch. Fuck, maybe if he can’t have that – if McCall won’t give him that – he wants to see McCall bloody-nosed and with a few broken teeth. Maybe what he wants to happen is exactly what happens; getting his forehead slammed against the wall hard enough to make his vision black over, his other arm yanked behind his back as well. The hard pinch of cold metal drawn too tight around his wrists.

“There you go. Happy now?” McCall says, grabbing Stiles by the neck again and pulling him away from the wall. Stiles half-expects to be marched right out of the door, shoved into the back of the FBI SUV and brought back home – McCall wouldn’t take him to the station, it wouldn’t be worth the commotion – but instead McCall surprises him by pushing him down onto the bed and then going to sit at the desk, flipping open a case file.

Twinges of pain shoot through Stiles’ wrists when he strains against the handcuffs. His head is spinning and he’s still breathing hard, but a strange sense of calm is starting to descend on him. At the desk, McCall’s shoulders move beneath the fabric of his button-down as he picks up a pen.

Stiles is half-hard again, and it’s all pretty absurd, him sitting here on Scott’s dad’s bed in the middle of the night with his hands cuffed behind his back, half-drunk and half-hard and half-out of breath and half-out of his mind. He’s unraveling, he knows he is— he’s crawling out of his skin, even when he’s drinking or smoking or punching walls or jumping down someone’s throat he feels like he’s crawling out of his fucking skin.

But he feels calmer now.

Maybe it’s because of the handcuffs. Maybe it’s because the alcohol is wearing off, because he’s finally tired himself out.

Or maybe it’s because of McCall. Because of McCall refusing to walk on eggshells around him the way everyone else does. Refusing to be gentle, to be patient. (“He just needs time,” Stiles overheard his dad say to Scott the other day. “Maybe we should try giving him some more space.” “More?” Scott said, hesitant.) Maybe it’s because McCall seems to know exactly where and how to touch Stiles, like he would know exactly what to say and do to him. How far to push him and how hard. He wouldn’t be careful; he wouldn’t be kind.

He would be exactly what Stiles needs.

After a while, Stiles lets himself fall sideways until his head hits the pillow. The pain in his shoulder hisses back to life. He kicks off his sneakers and pulls up his knees. The pillow smells good, so he buries his nose in it. The smell makes his stomach dip. His shoulder is aching but he doesn’t care. He’s too exhausted to care.

McCall has booted up his laptop. He hasn’t looked back at Stiles once since dumping him here. Stiles watches him type until he starts feeling drowsy.

Right when he’s about to drop off to sleep, McCall stirs in his chair. Stiles blinks. McCall gets up, stretches. He seems lost in thought. He doesn’t make eye contact but when he walks past the bed he traces his fingertips along Stiles’ hairline. Stiles feels the simple touch all the way down his spine.

McCall returns with a glass of wine. Stiles shifts a little when McCall sits down on the edge of the mattress, but he doesn’t try to sit up. He can’t remember the last time he felt this calm.

McCall takes a sip of wine. “Listen,” he says, eyes on Stiles. His face is grave. Stiles never used to think of him as attractive before. Maybe it’s just another sign of how fucked up he is that he does, now. “Are you awake?”

Stiles clears his throat. “Yeah,” he says.

“How do you feel?” McCall asks.

Stiles shrugs. His wrists and shoulders throb dully. “Sleepy,” he says. McCall is close enough for Stiles to smell his aftershave. His heart rate is starting to pick up again.

McCall says, “Drunk?”

Stiles shakes his head.

“Angry?”

Stiles shrugs and then shakes his head. “Not right now,” he says. “No.”

“Okay,” McCall says, taking another sip. He exhales. It’s almost a sigh. “All right, kid, listen to me. Here’s the deal. I’m not like your dad. I’m not like Melissa, or like Scott. I’m not one of the good guys.”

“No kidding,” Stiles says, but McCall raises a hand and says, louder, “I’m talking, all right? Here’s what’s gonna happen. I’m gonna take off those handcuffs and I’m gonna drive you home. I’m not gonna lay a hand on you and you’re not gonna make another move on me. We clear?”

“Yeah,” Stiles says around the hot lump in his throat. “Okay. Fine.”

“But,” McCall says. The pause stretches on. “You need to realize that if you show up here again, I’m not gonna be the good guy. I’m not gonna hold back. If you show up here again I’ll give you exactly what you want. What you think you want. Are we clear?”

Stiles’ heart is thumping painfully hard against his ribcage. He says, “Yeah, okay.”

“Yeah okay?” McCall echoes in a sharp, disapproving voice. “Seriously? That’s all you got? Yeah, okay? I’m giving you an out here. Are we clear about that, Stiles?”

“Yes, we’re clear,” Stiles says hotly. “We’re clear, all right.” His cheeks are burning; he’s not sure why.

McCall nods. He puts his glass down, leans over Stiles, unlocks the handcuffs. “C’mon, kid,” he says, pushing up from the bed. “I’ll give you a ride home.”

 

* * *

 

Stiles needs less than a day to decide.

He tells his dad he’s going to Danny’s to work on a school project after dinner. He doesn’t know whether or not his dad believes him but it doesn’t really matter. When he arrives at the apartment building the SUV isn’t in the parking lot, so Stiles sits in his jeep and waits. He smokes a few cigarettes to kill time. He runs out of cigarettes around eight thirty. McCall hasn’t showed up yet. Stiles goes upstairs, sits with his back against the wall next to McCall’s door. Waits.

When McCall strides into the hallway, he doesn’t say anything. He doesn’t even as much as glance in Stiles’ direction as he unlocks his front door. Stiles keeps his eyes on McCall’s polished shoes and feels— shame, he feels ashamed, feels the embarrassment of rejection and the concomitant despair like a fucking millstone in his gut. Somehow he wasn’t prepared for _this_ to happen. His face is on fire and his palms are sweaty and he, he doesn’t know what to do now, doesn’t— how could he have been so—

But McCall leaves the door wide open behind him.

Stiles closes his eyes and gulps down a breath. His heart is racing. He wipes his palms on his jeans, tries to calm down. It takes him a while to get to his feet.

McCall’s polished shoes are standing next to the bed, pants and jacket and shirt strewn across the sheets. There’s the sound of water running. The bathroom door is opened a crack.

Stiles sinks down on the bed and stares at his shaking hands in his lap.

By the time he steps into the bathroom, naked, the mirror is fogged up. The sound of the water clattering down, drowning out the loud thump of his pulse in his ears, is a relief.

McCall is standing in the shower with his back to the door. His tallness comes, as always, as a shock; so does the breadth of his shoulders, the fact that all Stiles wants to do is run both his hands down McCall’s back to see if the skin feels as smooth as it looks. He hadn’t— hadn’t really thought up to this point yet, wasn’t sure what he’d do. Wasn’t prepared, really, for the sense of longing that wavers inside him and makes him step forward, into the cubicle.

“Thought you’d left,” McCall says over his shoulder. “Changed your mind.”

“Nah,” Stiles says. “I don’t really change my mind once I’ve made it up.” He has to raise his voice to make himself heard. It doesn’t shake. He can’t help but feel vaguely pleased about that. He clenches and unclenches his hands. His skin is breaking out in goose bumps but he hovers in the same spot, watches McCall turn around under the spray of water and look him up and down, slowly, with an unreadable expression on his face.

“Come here,” McCall says right when Stiles is about to cave to the urge to avert his eyes and fold his arms across his chest. He moves forward mindlessly, glad to escape the weight of McCall’s scrutinizing gaze. McCall reaches for his neck and pulls him closer until their lower bodies touch.

The locker room at school is the only place where Stiles has ever seen other people’s dicks in real life, and only ever fleetingly. The only dick other than his own that he can recall with some clarity is Scott’s, but he’s never touched another dick, not even Scott’s, and he probably shouldn’t be thinking about Scott’s dick right now, with the hard heavy line of Rafael McCall’s dick pressing against his stomach. Acutely in need of something to hold on to, he curls his fingers around McCall’s upper arm. His mind is reeling.

“Okay?” McCall murmurs, his mouth unbelievably close, and Stiles tips his head back and lets his mouth go slack without thinking about it. Stop thinking about it, he needs to stop thinking about it, all of it, and he’s about to – he’s about to stop thinking – when McCall’s lips almost touch his, then brush along his jaw and the shell of his ear, the line of his neck.

Stiles tilts his head to the side and closes his eyes against the water as McCall starts touching him with meticulous precision. His neck, his shoulders, his arms, wrists, fingers. McCall is breathing evenly into his ear. Stiles shivers despite the hot water. His knees go weak and his mouth goes dry as McCall’s big hands slide up his stomach, skim past his nipples and stroke down his back. They finger the curves of his ass cheeks and ghost across his balls and his throbbing dick before coming back up to cup his face. Stiles arches into the touch, blindly, but before he can succeed at aligning their mouths McCall straightens up.

“Have you ever been touched like this before?” he asks. One of his hands is warm on the small of Stiles’ back. The thumb of his other hand presses down on Stiles’ bottom lip, and that hand is already curling around Stiles’ dick by the time Stiles manages to shake his head, swallow around the nervous flutter in his throat, whisper, “No.”

McCall’s hand is larger than his. It fits around Stiles’ dick hot and tight, the calluses on his palm sending jolts of pleasure through Stiles’ spine on every upstroke. McCall immediately sets a brisk pace, doesn’t ease him into it – isn’t careful about it – and Stiles can’t stop gasping for air, water running into his mouth, his eyes, he can’t.

“Have you been with a girl?” McCall asks. “Stiles?”

“N-no,” Stiles gasps out. A blurry image floats to the forefront of his mind, and he adds, blinking frantically, “Kind of,” but he doesn’t— he can’t think about her, shouldn’t think about— about that, about _it_ , and he shouldn’t think about Scott either—

A shudder overtakes his body and he moans. He presses his forehead to the curve of McCall’s shoulder, but fingers hook underneath his chin to lift it up again right away. It makes Stiles feel exposed, truly naked, and it’s absurd how good this feels. He was expecting it to feel dirty, wrong. Maybe, on some level of consciousness, he _wanted_ it to feel dirty and wrong. He wasn’t expecting it to feel this _good_ , McCall’s warm hand anchored around his jaw to keep his face tilted up and McCall’s dick sliding shamelessly against Stiles’ stomach and the tight strokes of his hand and those dark insistent hungry eyes—

“Please,” Stiles gasps, “please,” and he doesn’t know what he’s begging for but it’s the right word to say because McCall’s eyes soften and he thumbs the head of Stiles’ dick _just_ right, and Stiles’ orgasm explodes from him. He can’t move his head; all he can do is close his eyes and try to hold back the moans. He’s panting, shaking on his feet by the time he finishes coming. This time McCall does allow him to burrow his face into McCall’s shoulder as he draws in deep lungfuls of air.

Stiles watches McCall close his hand around his own dick and stroke it fast. Watching come spurt from the tip, Stiles is surprised when his stomach tugs once more with lust. He kind of wants to drop to his knees and taste the come, lick it off McCall’s knuckles and suck it off the head of his dick, but instead he watches it all circle down the drain. He feels spent. He feels calm. He touches McCall’s abdomen, the dark bristles of hair prickling against his palm, touches McCall’s flushed dick. It’s thicker than his own, bigger. Heavier. Stiles doesn’t feel weird touching it.

They towel off in silence. The constant buzz of anxiety in Stiles’ brain has quieted down. It feels like it’s been replaced with cotton wool.

Instead of shooing Stiles out of the door straight away, McCall pulls on a pair of sweatpants and leaves the room without a word. Stiles slowly finishes getting dressed. He’s tying his shoelaces when McCall comes back with a glass of water and a glass of wine.

“Here,” he says, handing Stiles the water. “Drink this.”

“I’d rather have that,” Stiles says, nodding at the wine, but he obeys. He’s thirsty anyway.

While Stiles finishes his water, McCall pulls a pillow off the bed and lets it drop to the floor. He settles back against the headboard with one of his long legs folded underneath the other. “All right,” he says. “Let’s establish a couple of ground rules.”

“Seriously?” Stiles says, sitting back. “Rules? What is this, Sunday school?”

McCall pulls up one eyebrow. “Why, you planning to make this a once a week thing?” he says, tipping back his head as he drinks from his wine. Stiles watches his throat work. A leftover spasm of lust breaks through his post-orgasm glow. He doesn’t reply. He doesn’t want this to be a once a week thing. His skin is already humming quietly with the need for more.

“I’ve never been very good at following rules,” he says eventually, moving to sit cross-legged.

“You’ll follow mine,” McCall says in a resolute tone of voice. He prods Stiles’ thigh with his foot. “No shoes on the bed goes without saying.”

Stiles rolls his eyes and shifts so that his feet are dangling off the bed instead. “Predictable. Anything else?”

“Yeah,” McCall says. “You don’t drink here. You don’t drink before you come here. If I ever smell alcohol on your breath I’m sending you straight back home. I’m not fucking you when you’re intoxicated. I want you in a normal state of mind. Stay sober or stay away. Got that?”

Stiles can feel McCall’s eyes on him, but he’s too busy thinking _fucking fucking fucking_ and _I want you_ to come up with a smartass reply. He just nods. “Got it,” he says when McCall keeps looking at him expectantly instead of continuing.

McCall nods as well. “Good. You’ve never had sex. I like it rough, so before we do anything you’re gonna have to practice. Do you finger yourself?”

“Y-yeah,” Stiles stammers, taken aback. “Yeah, I’ve got, like, a vibrator and everything.” He wills the blush to stay down.

“Good,” McCall says. “Keep using that. It’ll make it easier. You should practice deep-throating on it too.”

Stiles can’t tell from his facial expression if McCall is saying this just to get a rise out of him – to get him to blush, to back out – so he doesn’t respond.

“Okay?” McCall presses. “I thought I made it clear I want to hear you say it.”

Stiles rolls his eyes. “ _Yes_ ,” he says, emphatically. “Okay.” The buzz in his brain is back, but it doesn’t feel anxious; if anything, it’s closer to excitement. He threads his fingers together, makes his leg bounce.

“Good boy,” McCall says, and even though his tone of voice is mocking something in Stiles’ chest trills at the words. “Now, this is where it gets important. I’ll be the one calling the shots, but you’re free to put a stop to this any time you want. Any time, all right? You hear me?”

“Yes,” Stiles says. His brain is still buzzing.

“And I need you to tell me when it gets too much,” McCall says. “I mean it. Wait means wait, stop means stop, no means no. Enough means enough. Okay?”

Stiles nods. “Okay.”

“I want you to quit smoking too,” McCall says. “Right now. You can’t kiss me until you quit smoking.”

“Okay,” Stiles says again. “I’ll try.”

“Don’t try,” McCall says. “Just do it.”

Before he leaves, Stiles presses his nose into the shallow dip below McCall’s collarbone again and breathes in. McCall touches the back of his head and lets him.

 

* * *

 

Stiles makes the mistake once, on a bad day about a month into the— the whatever he should call this. The agreement. He’s been doing well so far; he’s been drinking less, smoking less, has been dutifully stretching himself open every evening. It feels better on the evenings after getting home from the apartment, when the fresh memory of McCall’s dick in his hands or sliding against his lips or between his slickened thighs makes him twist his fingers in harder. It feels best when he can still smell their come on his other hand.

He’s been practicing deep-throating too, practicing until he can take a few inches of the vibrator without gagging or his eyes watering. One night he goes at it for too long, fucks his throat so raw he can barely speak the next morning at school until Scott reaches out to take away the pain.

“I wish you hadn’t picked up smoking,” Scott says softly, after dropping his hand.

“It’s not a big deal,” Stiles says. “It’s just to keep my hands busy. It’s not like I’m addicted or anything.”

One corner of Scott’s mouth pulls up into a lopsided smile. It’s not very convincing. He looks weary, and Stiles remembers with sudden stabbing clarity that he’s not the only one who’s lost— things. People. A part of himself.

“I’m sorry,” he says almost involuntarily, touching Scott’s wrist. “I’m quitting. I’ll quit. I don’t need it.”

“You don’t have to apologize to me,” Scott says, smiling for real now, and Stiles’ stomach wavers sickeningly because Scott is wrong, so wrong, he has no idea how wrong he is, and the worst part is Stiles doesn’t even feel guilty about it. He feels guilty about a lot of things, but having sex with Scott’s douchebag father behind his back isn’t one of them, and how fucked up is that?

They get to class and the seat in front of Scott’s stays empty and the feeling becomes suffocating. The emptiness stretches beyond the desk and chair, settles in the center of Stiles’ chest. He almost can’t breathe around it. His lungs feel brittle and cracked and it’s got nothing to do with the smoking – in fact he hasn’t smoked in days – and everything to do with the empty desk and chair in front of Scott’s.

When Stiles tries to move his fingers they obey. Throughout the day he keeps glancing at his fingers, curling and uncurling them. Every time they obey it’s a dull surprise that doesn’t even have the decency to feel like relief.

Their last class ends, and Scott touches the inside of his wrist. “Do you want me to come home with you?”

Stiles shakes his head. “I think I need to be alone,” he says. “It’s too, it’s too busy in here, that’s all,” and it’s a lie, it’s not the noisy crowded hallways that are making him feel like this, but Scott nods sympathetically anyway. Stiles’ chest pangs, and he says, “No, Scott, wait, we can— let’s go get a milkshake or something, all right?”

In the back of his mind, he can’t help but think that it’s not even four o’clock; there’s no way McCall is done with work yet.

Stiles gets home before his dad does. He starts chopping vegetables. His dad arrives and they have some sort of conversation but five minutes later Stiles can’t remember what either of them said. He can’t seem to calm down. After dinner his dad insists on cleaning up but Stiles insists on helping with the dishes. The first plate his dad hands him slips through his fingers, shatters on the kitchen tiles.

“It’s fine, son,” his dad says, bending down to pick up the shards. “I’ll take care of it. Go finish your homework, all right?”

But his hands are shaking too much to hold a pen, and he clenches them around his head and tries to breathe.

He doesn’t feel like drinking. He doesn’t feel like punching a wall. He doesn’t want to go and pick a fight with his dad.

He wants McCall.

His dad is downstairs, though, and he’s too— he can’t think of an excuse to leave the house. He sits on his bed and tries to think but his mind won’t stop racing long enough for him to come up with something.

He goes to the bathroom and cracks the window open and smokes a cigarette. He smokes another one. Then, he washes his hands and cleans his teeth and leaves without saying anything. His dad doesn’t ask him where he’s going.

McCall is still in full suit when he opens the door. He looks at Stiles and frowns. He doesn’t say anything, though, so Stiles slides his forearms into the front pocket of his hoodie and slips inside. He takes a deep breath. Sometime during the past few weeks, McCall’s apartment has started smelling familiar. Grounding.

He’s about to walk over to the bed when McCall pulls him back by his shoulder, pushes him up against the closed door. His other hand fists into Stiles’ hair to tug his head backward. McCall’s mouth brushes against Stiles’, and this is something he does sometimes, making Stiles beg for it wordlessly; Stiles knows the drill by now. Not in the mood to stall, he lets his mouth fall open, strains against the hand in his hair, breathes, “Please.”

McCall looks at him, face a neutral mask, and straightens up.

“You can go home,” he says, letting go of Stiles’ hair.

The floor crumbles beneath Stiles’ feet.

“No,” he says. He barely manages to choke out the word. “N-no, please, I—”

“You know the rules, Stiles,” McCall says without looking at him. “Get out of my sight.”

Stiles’ heart is beating so fast he feels sick. He breathes through the nausea, says, voice wavering, thin, close to breaking, “I’m sorry, okay, I only had a few, I—” but McCall is already walking away from him, and he can’t take this, can’t, he can’t breathe, McCall can’t _do_ this to him, he can’t—

Stiles sags back against the door and runs his hands through his hair. When he does so he catches a faint whiff of smoke from his fingers and he gags, covers his mouth with his hand but the smell is everywhere and it makes him feel so sick he dry-heaves again. His eyes are burning and McCall is turning around now, looking at him, saying something, but Stiles can’t hear him, his ears are ringing and a strangled noise bubbles up from his midriff and slips through his fingers. His smoke-stained fingers.

He rushes into the apartment. His vision goes blurry halfway, and he stumbles into the bathroom, hits his hip hard against the door handle. His fingers go as white as the sink they’re clenched around, and when he looks in the mirror his eyes are bloodshot, cheeks blotched and glistening. The bags underneath his eyes are still there and there’s a twitch near the corner of his mouth and he recognizes this face, of course he does, but not just from the mirror. His chest heaves again. His hands are shaking so much he drops McCall’s toothbrush twice, gets toothpaste everywhere.

Warm hands wrap around his wrists, and Stiles gasps, “N-no, stop, I have to—”

“Stiles,” McCall says quietly. “Hey. Look at me.”

“I’ve got to brush my teeth,” Stiles says, and somewhere in the back of his mind he’s aware of the fact that he’s acting ridiculous, insane, but he can’t, he has to— “I’ve got to brush my teeth,” he repeats, squeezing his eyes shut, “I’ve got to wash my hands, I’ve got to—”

“ _Look at me_ ,” McCall says, orders, and Stiles does. “Good. Now breathe.”

Stiles draws in a shallow breath.

“Good,” McCall says, “that’s it,” and he takes the toothbrush and the tube of toothpaste from Stiles’ hands. He has to let go of Stiles’ wrists to do so, though, and Stiles is pretty sure he’s going to throw up now. He circles around to the toilet, sits on the edge of the bathtub with his head between his hands. But he doesn’t throw up, not even when McCall closes the lid of the toilet seat and lowers himself down on it.

“Hey,” McCall says, replacing Stiles’ hands with his own, which are bigger and warmer. “Hey, calm down, it’s okay,” he says, kissing Stiles’ temple, and Stiles doesn’t understand why McCall is kissing his temple, why he’s talking in that uncharacteristically soft tone of voice, why there’s a wet patch appearing just above the front pocket of his suit. He doesn’t understand, but he’s too tired to ask and he’s pretty sure his voice wouldn’t work even if he tried.

“I’m sorry,” he says eventually, when he feels like he can speak again. “It’s just, I’ve had a pretty bad day,” and McCall huffs out a laugh against the side of his face that sounds neither cheerful nor derisive. Stiles doesn’t really know what to make of it.

 

* * *

 

They don’t have sex that evening, and Stiles doesn’t make the mistake of showing up reeking of beer or cigarettes again. What he told Scott was true; he doesn’t need it. At least not as much as he needs McCall’s hands on his body, McCall’s mouth against his, McCall’s dick driving into him. He doesn’t know when exactly that started being true, but it’s true all right. The brief sore throat and the head rush of alcohol and nicotine don’t weigh up to the sore throat and head rush McCall can give him instead.

Now, on the days when he feels like he might thrum out of his skin, Stiles goes straight to McCall.

He lets himself in with the key he was handed a while ago, around the time McCall deemed him ready to be fucked for the first time— face in the pillow, ass up in the air, thigh muscles and vocal cords straining from rocking back against McCall’s thick long fingers for what felt like hours beforehand. His stomach still twists with heat when he thinks about it. He hovers near the door, doesn’t say anything. Waits for McCall to look up from his laptop screen. Clenches his hands to fists, inhales and exhales. He’s got the shakes again. There’s some sort of pressure building in his chest, behind his ribs.

“Bolt the door,” McCall says without looking up. Stiles does. McCall, typing something, says, “Take off your backpack.”

Stiles obeys.

“Take off your jacket.”

Shoes are next. Then, shirt. By the time they’ve gotten to take off your underwear, McCall is leaning back in his chair, pen in his mouth, watching. Legs casually splayed apart, the crotch of his pants tented. His chest is rising and falling evenly. Stiles is more than half-hard as well but he knows better than to touch himself, lets his arms hang by his sides, hands curled into loose fists.

“What do you need?” McCall asks.

Stiles shrugs, shakes his head. The pressure behind his ribs tightens. Something, he thinks. Anything. Chew me up or swallow me whole. I don’t care. Tear me apart. Break me down and build me back up whichever way you please.

“I dunno,” he says. His voice trembles. “Just. Make it stop.” He looks at the floor.

“Don’t look down,” McCall says sharply. “Keep your eyes on me.” Stiles looks up again. McCall nods and gets to his feet. He jerks his chin in the direction of the bed. “Lie down. On your back. Hands on the headboard.”

He tied Stiles up like this once. Wrists to the headboard, ankles to the legs of the bed. Stiles remembers. Remembers the rope biting into his skin just right, the calm that washed over him almost straight away.

This time, McCall waits until Stiles has carried out his orders before coming closer. He unbuttons his jacket with one hand as he sits down on the edge of the bed. It’s almost fatherly, and Stiles can feel his face flush, averts his eyes before remembering—

“Eyes on me,” McCall says, his hand closing around Stiles’ chin. “That’s it. Good boy.”

It’s been a long time since he called Stiles that in a mocking way. Stiles’ fingers clench tighter around the headboard, and the corner of McCall’s mouth tugs upward as he touches his thumb to Stiles’ bottom lip, pushes down. Stiles opens his mouth for it without thinking. McCall’s thumb smooths along the inside of his bottom lip and then slides past his teeth, the rough pad pressing down on Stiles’ tongue. It tastes salty. Stiles’ stomach muscles contract.

“Suck,” McCall orders, leaning in, the fingers of his other hand curling loosely around Stiles’ windpipe.

Stiles swallows around the thumb, watches McCall’s eyelids twitch and his mouth go slack. He feels strangely in control. He’s not shaking anymore.

“Good,” McCall says quietly, briefly squeezing Stiles’ throat. Stiles moans inadvertently. “You’re doing well,” McCall tells him. He strokes Stiles’ cheek with the side of his finger. “I might try fucking your mouth later, if you continue doing well. If you can keep still while I finish my report. Do you think you can do that for me, Stiles?”

Stiles makes an assenting noise.

“Good boy,” McCall says, pulling his thumb from Stiles’ mouth and running it along his bottom lip again, pushing down, smiling when Stiles opens up for it a second time. “Let’s see how well you can do.”

He pushes up from the bed and goes back to his desk. Stiles has to crane his neck to watch him leave. There’s the sound of the laptop booting up again. Stiles turns his head back, looks at the ceiling again. His heartbeat is steady. The room is warm, quiet. He closes his eyes, exhales.

It feels like hours, years later when McCall comes back to him. Stiles awakens from his slumber to hands roaming his skin, touching him everywhere. McCall’s movements are thoughtful but never cautious, never too careful. Stiles keeps his eyes closed. When McCall caresses the insides of his thighs he has to fight to keep his spine flat against the mattress, to keep from arching up into the touch. McCall would scold him for his impatience, and he doesn’t want to be scolded, not today; what he wants is to stay in this headspace forever, floating just below the surface of full consciousness, quiet, untroubled. Calm.

One of McCall’s hands stops right over his heart. Pauses. Stiles breathes. He can feel his heart beat against McCall’s palm, the slow steady thump of it, can feel the heat of McCall’s skin warming his and the prickle of McCall’s presence in the fine hair on his wrists. His shoulders are cramping up but he doesn’t try to move.

“What do you want?” McCall asks.

Stiles opens his eyes to slivers. “Thought you were the one calling the shots here, Agent,” he says. His voice sounds a little sluggish.

McCall smirks minutely. “That doesn’t mean I can’t ask for your input,” he says, sitting back and sliding his jacket off his shoulders. Stiles watches him undress, watches his broad fingers gracefully work the buttons out of their holes and watches the long stretch of McCall’s naked back when he bends down to untie his shoelaces. He can feel his stomach go wet where the tip of his dick is resting against it, but he doesn’t take his hands off the headboard to scratch the itch. He wouldn’t dream of it.

“Well?” McCall says. He moves to kneel over Stiles and reaches for his shoulders, starts massaging his sore biceps with both hands. Left arm, then right arm. First there’s pain; then, briefly, there’s nothing. Then, warmth.

“Want you to fuck me,” Stiles manages when McCall’s hands arrive at his right wrist to rub away the ache there. McCall smiles again and uncurls Stiles’ fingers from the headboard, warms them between his hands.

“Like this?” he asks, moving Stiles’ arms down so they’re lying by his sides. “On your back?”

Stiles shrugs. His shoulders protest; he winces. McCall touches his face, kisses him, and then says in a low voice, “Legs up.”

Stiles used to think he wouldn’t enjoy getting fucked this way. In porn it always seemed too uncomfortable, too exposed to him. And he was right, he does feel overexposed like this, on his back, pulling at his knees to hold himself open for McCall, but it’s not— it’s not a _bad_ feeling. It’s intense and overwhelming and a little filthy, but then, everything with McCall is— and that, Stiles thinks as McCall finally pushes into him, as he has to press the side of his face into the pillow and close his eyes and grit his teeth to force himself to let McCall in, isn’t that exactly what drew him here in the first place? Isn’t that the reason why he went out of his way to seek this out?

“All right,” McCall says after a few minutes, “eyes on me now,” and Stiles obeys, because isn’t that exactly what he wanted, what he needed— someone who told him what to do, what to feel, someone who made him feel something other than guilt and fury—

Except instead of dirty and wrong, it feels filthy and _good_.

McCall’s hair is falling into his eyes, and his eyes are dark, dark and open. They’re locked on Stiles’ and Stiles has no choice but to look back at him, to spread his knees farther and stare right back. His back hurts and his arms ache but it doesn’t matter because McCall’s hungry eyes are on him and McCall is letting out these low dizzying noises with every roll of his hips. One of his hands is braced against the back of Stiles’ knee; his other hand curls around Stiles’ head, fingertips pressing into his skull. When McCall drives into him again, grunting under his breath, Stiles turns his head and stifles a moan against McCall’s palm.

“Don’t,” McCall says between thrusts, “louder, let me hear you, I want to hear you,” and Stiles’ breath catches when McCall lifts his thigh up higher and fucks into him, hard.

“Fuck,” he says, and McCall smirks, holds still before sinking inside again, slower and deeper this time. When he’s all the way in, a crackle of sparks shoots up Stiles’ spine unexpectedly. “Oh, _fuck_ ,” he gasps, grasping onto McCall’s shoulder, fingers sliding against sweaty skin. “Please—”

McCall presses his forehead to Stiles’ temple. “Good boy,” he murmurs, the warm burst of breath sending goose bumps across the skin of Stiles’ neck, “good boy, you can touch yourself if you want,” and Stiles does, obeys McCall’s suggestion blindly. It’s not until he wraps his hand around his dick that he realizes how hard he is, how wet, how close to coming. “Oh,” he gasps, “ _oh_ ,” and McCall hangs his head and lets out a breathless laugh, rewards Stiles with another purposeful roll of his hips.

“Next time,” he says, nudging Stiles’ chin with his thumb until Stiles looks him in the eye, “next time I won’t wear a condom so you can feel me come inside you.” Stiles gasps again. “Would you like that, Stiles?”

“Y-yes,” Stiles says, “yes, please, please,” and he strokes himself faster, his entire body pulsing hotly underneath McCall’s. A drop of sweat slides down his forehead.

“Good,” McCall says, kissing his cheek, his chin, his mouth, “good boy, that’s it, fuck, you sound so good like this, you’re doing so well,” and Stiles barely manages to bite back another _please_. The word turns into a low, needy moan in the back of his throat.

“That’s it,” McCall says breathlessly, “c’mon, come for me now,” and Stiles squeezes his eyes shut and tries not to cry out as he spurts into his hand and between their stomachs, McCall pounding into him still, hard and mercilessly; he doesn’t stop, doesn’t slow down even when Stiles is full-on gasping for air, driving his nails into McCall’s shoulder, choking down noises, holding on through the relentless overstimulation. He can’t stop whispering, “fuck, fuck, _fuck_ ,” and it takes all his strength to wrench open his eyes when McCall tells him to – has to tell him twice – and to keep them open as McCall’s face goes slack with orgasm.

When McCall pulls out of him, Stiles feels small and empty. Untethered without the weight of McCall’s body on top of his. It only lasts a few seconds; McCall maneuvers him onto his side and pulls him close, kisses his shoulder blade, wraps an arm around him from behind. “You did well,” McCall murmurs, and he whispers it again, and again, until Stiles has little choice but to believe him.

 

* * *

 

The cruiser is still in the driveway when Stiles pulls up in front of the house around seven thirty. His dad is leaning against the kitchen counter with a mug in his hands. “Morning,” he says.

“Morning,” Stiles says. He lets his backpack drop to the floor.

His dad takes a sip from his coffee. “Have fun at Scott’s?”

“Yeah,” Stiles says, opening the fridge. “We managed to finish that assignment I was telling you about yesterday.” He pulls at the collar of his shirt. “I just stopped by to change before school.”

“Sure,” his dad says, flashing him a quick smile.

“Oh, and, uh, Melissa says hi,” Stiles says as he grabs the milk.

The lies slip out smoothly, as usual. As usual, they come with only the slightest smidge of guilt. As usual, he thinks he should probably feel guilty about that; about not feeling guilty enough. Maybe he would, if he hadn’t already met his quota of guilt for this year. Maybe he would, if his body weren’t aching dully and deliciously everywhere, making it hard to feel anything other than mild complacence.

“You better not be about to drink that straight from the jug,” his dad says warningly, and Stiles puts the milk down just in time and says, pretending to feel hurt, “What? Dad! I would never. Unlike several of my acquaintances, I wasn’t raised by wolves.”

His dad laughs at that. It’s been a while since Stiles heard him laugh. He can feel the corners of his own mouth pull, and he ducks his head to hide his smile as he goes to find a glass.

“Stiles,” his dad says behind him. “Listen, I gotta get to work, but if you feel like having lunch together at the station today…”

He’s asked the same question dozens of times over the past few months. Stiles has said no every single time. He’s about to say no again when he realizes that the question doesn’t make his stomach turn, doesn’t make him clench his hands to fists, doesn’t. Doesn’t do anything. He pauses. “Yeah,” he says, testing out the word, half-expecting to recoil from it, to want to take it back immediately, but there’s no senseless aversion rising in his gut, no knee-jerk reaction of do not want. “Yeah,” he repeats more firmly, looking over his shoulder. “I’d like that.”

“I’ll see you at one, then,” his dad says. He’s smiling. It looks genuine.

“Okay,” Stiles says, and he smiles too. “Looking forward to it.”

“Me too, son. Oh, and feel free to bring along some curly fries, all right?”

Stiles buys him an extra large portion. They share the fries on one of the benches in front of the station, in the sun. It almost feels like a celebration. Of what, Stiles isn’t sure.

He follows his dad back inside after lunch to pick up his backpack from the office. His dad comes to an abrupt halt in the doorway. “What are you doing in here?” he says hotly before striding inside.

McCall is standing at the desk, holding an open case file in his hands. Seeing him unexpectedly feels like someone has taken a sledgehammer to the back of Stiles’ knees and then to his gut. Somehow, though, it’s not altogether an unpleasant feeling.

“I got a new case to brief you on,” McCall says as he looks up, his eyebrows raising when his eyes fall on Stiles. “Hey Stiles,” he adds in a casual, indifferent tone of voice that doesn’t give anything away. He doesn’t even blink. It’s pretty impressive.

Stiles straightens his back. “Agent McCall,” he says coolly, and a warm smug feeling washes over him when he sees the corner of McCall’s mouth twitch almost imperceptibly.

“Allow me to leave you two to your little family reunion,” McCall says, putting the file down on the desk and smoothing down the lapels of his jacket. “I’ll be back in five to discuss the details, Stilinski. You better be ready by then.”

As he brushes past him, McCall presses two fingers briefly against the small of Stiles’ back. Stiles’ mouth goes completely dry, but he manages to keep it together. “Great to see your favorite colleague is still under the impression that he’s calling the shots around here,” he says as he closes the door behind McCall, heart pounding.

His dad sags down into his chair and rubs at his forehead. “Yeah,” he says, heaving a sigh. “Maybe I should get the whole force to chip in for his birthday and get him that ‘fucker in charge of you fucking fucks’ nameplate you showed me on Twitter. Ironically, of course.”

“It’s Tumblr, Dad.”

His dad waves him away. “Twitter, Tumblr, Facebook, MySpace, whatever. I gotta be honest, though, remember when— remember that night he brought you home? Not too long ago, a month or two? Maybe three?”

Stiles’ throat clicks when he says, “Yeah.” He swallows a few times. To him, it feels like forever ago.

“He’s never brought it up once. He asked me if everything was all right, the next day, but he never asked what was going on with you. And he didn’t press for an explanation that night in the hospital, either.”

“Well,” Stiles says, “it’s none of his goddamn business.”

His dad pulls a face. “That’s what I think, obviously. But in light of the man’s unwavering insistence on prying into my private business and being a dick in general, I was pleasantly surprised anyway. Who knows, maybe there’s a shred of decency buried somewhere underneath that infuriating self-satisfied exterior after all.”

“Ha,” Stiles says weakly. “Dad, I gotta get back to school, all right? I’ll see you at home. Thanks for lunch.”

“See you at home, son. Thanks for bringing the fries.”

 

* * *

 

“You little shit,” McCall says the next time Stiles arrives at the apartment, but there’s no real anger behind his words. He crowds Stiles back against the door and fists a hand into his hair. “You little shit, you could’ve told me you were—”

“Coming to the station?” Stiles says, a little out of breath from taking the stairs by two. Arousal is swirling low in his stomach. “What, you mean like shoot you a text? ‘Hey, Mr. Special Agent, just a quick heads-up, there’s a chance we might run into each other at your place of work later today, try not to boast to the whole sheriff’s department about how you were balls-deep inside me last—” He cuts off with a yelp when McCall yanks his head back, hard. His dick is filling up in his pants. When he shifts he can feel the hard line of McCall’s dick against his hipbone.

“Fuck,” McCall says, shaking his head. “Your filthy fucking mouth. I should’ve…”

“Should’ve what?” Stiles asks, breathless.

McCall shoots him a look. “Should’ve done what I thought about doing,” he says in a quiet voice, leaning down. His nose brushes against Stiles’ ear. He’s breathing hard as well. Stiles shivers and bites down on the inside of his cheek. “Should’ve done what I wanted to do,” McCall murmurs, nosing at his jawline. “Take you into the alley behind the station and get you on your knees and fuck that impudent mouth of yours. Teach you a lesson.”

“What about the cameras?” Stiles says a little hoarsely.

McCall straightens up again. “You think I don’t know exactly which spots to avoid?” he says, smirking.

“What about people, then?” Stiles says. “My dad—”

“Well,” McCall says, catching Stiles’ bottom lip between his thumb and index finger, “you would’ve just had to be a good boy and get me off as quickly as possible, wouldn’t you?”

His eyes flicker down to Stiles’ throat when Stiles swallows thickly. Then they bore into his again. “On your knees,” McCall says, tugging at Stiles’ hair. “Now.”

Stiles obediently sinks to the floor. “Hey, by the way,” he says as he wraps a hand around McCall’s calf for support. “Stellar performance in there with my dad. Hella smooth. I had no idea they offered acting courses at Quantico.”

“That’s because they don’t,” McCall says, unfastening his belt and unzipping his fly. “Put your hands in your lap and keep ’em there.”

“Well, they obviously did offer them back when you went there,” Stiles says. “Last century.” He threads his fingers together and presses them down on his crotch to adjust the position of his dick inside his underwear.

“You calling me old?” McCall says, unperturbed. “God, you’re a fucking handful today.” He spits into his hand and pulls out his dick, giving it a few long, self-assured strokes. His other hand slides into Stiles’ hair again. “Now keep your mouth shut.”

“That kind of defies the whole—” Stiles starts to say, but he goes silent when his head is angled back roughly and McCall starts rubbing the head of his dick along Stiles’ lips, coating them with precome.

“Yeah,” McCall says quietly, gripping himself tighter, “definitely should’ve done this last week.”

He lets go of Stiles’ hair and presses down on the hinge of Stiles’ jaw with his thumb, making his mouth fall open. Stiles sucks down the tip of McCall’s dick, his fingers twitching in his lap when McCall gives a few shallow thrusts right away. He’s watching Stiles intently, his mouth half-open in a loose smirk. A strand of hair has fallen down onto his forehead. He pushes in deeper, and Stiles closes his eyes, swallows around McCall’s dick. The taste and smell and the feeling of fullness is making his own hard-on strain against the inside of his zipper. He squeezes it between his hands.

“You’ve gotten so good at taking this,” McCall tells him. He pulls back, strokes himself. “You want me to come in your mouth?”

Stiles’ stomach tugs, and he nods. He’s not allowed to speak, so he leans in and wraps his lips around McCall’s dick again, curls his tongue around the head the way McCall likes it to prove that he isn’t playing around anymore. All his nerve endings are buzzing with lust.

McCall laughs breathlessly and runs both his hands through Stiles’ hair. “Too bad,” he says, “because I feel like coming on your face today,” and Stiles moans at that, his dick pulsing against his palm as McCall presses into his mouth again. He’s still cupping Stiles’ head with both hands, keeping it in place, and his thrusts gradually become longer, deeper. Stiles accommodates to the rhythm easily, makes his throat flutter around the head of McCall’s dick and his tongue pulse up against the underside. McCall is right; he _has_ gotten good at this. He relaxes his mouth and moans lowly, feeling McCall’s fingers tighten around his skull.

“Fuck,” McCall says, “you drive me crazy, you know that? Absolutely fucking—”

One of his hands locks around Stiles’ jaw, thumb rubbing his cheekbone. Stiles’ face feels hot and he can feel wetness slide down his chin, but it’s all right because McCall is a mess as well, his pupils blown and his hair wild, his lips parted as he watches his dick slide in and out of Stiles’ mouth. His forehead is creased and glistening with sweat. He’s not moaning but his chest is heaving, a quiet grunt or a breathy, “fuck,” slipping out every now and then. Stiles kicks it up a notch, letting his eyes go heavy-lidded and hollowing his cheeks as he sucks down McCall’s dick, moaning around it. McCall lets out a deep groan.

“You’re a fucking menace,” he says hoarsely, “fuck, Stiles,” and he fists his hand into Stiles’ hair again and circles the fingers of his other hand around the base of his dick, stroking himself tightly. The first spurt of come shoots down Stiles’ throat, and he swallows hurriedly; McCall pulls back, and Stiles closes his eyes as McCall’s come hits his lips, his cheek, his throat. When it’s over he blinks them open carefully, licks his lips.

“Touch yourself,” McCall commands, tugging at his hair. “C’mon, I wanna see you come,” and Stiles reaches into his pants, almost keens when he finally gets some friction around his dick. McCall’s dick is still right there, flushed and spent, the tip slick with come. Stiles leans forward to lap it clean and then buries his nose in the crease of McCall’s hip, breathing in deeply as he jerks off into his boxers. He presses his mouth to the inside of McCall’s thigh as he comes. His skin feels hot and prickly all over.

After a few moments McCall guides his head back, smiles down at him. “And?” he says. “Learned your lesson?”

“I think the message hasn’t really sunk in yet,” Stiles says, wiping his hand on his shirt and lifting it up to wipe McCall’s come off his face. He feels a little dazed. “Maybe we should repeat this a few more times, y’know, just to make sure it sticks.”

“You’ve got come behind your ear,” McCall says dryly. “Feel free to use the shower.”

Under the spray of water, Stiles toys with the idea of fucking himself open on his fingers and going back into the living room, naked and dripping wet, to ride McCall’s dick. It’s a hot thought, and he goes half-hard again entertaining it, but he feels too jittery to make it happen. He towels off quickly and grabs a pair of McCall’s briefs off the shelf. They’re plain, gray. High quality cotton. Such a snob.

McCall is sitting on the foot of the bed in his undershirt and sweatpants, with a glass of wine in one hand and his iPhone in the other. The television is on.

“This place needs a couch, dude,” Stiles says without really thinking about it.

McCall looks up at him with narrowed eyes. He drops his phone on the sheets and gets to his feet, grabs Stiles by the back of his neck. “What did you just call me?” he asks, mock-serious.

Stiles rolls his eyes. “I said, this place needs a couch, Mr. Special Agent McCall Sir,” he says. McCall laughs, shakes him a little and then lets go again. Stiles rubs at his neck. His shirt is lying at the foot of the bed where he left it; he prods at it with his toe. “Do you have something for me to wear? Someone got come all over my shirt.”

McCall waves a hand in the direction of the cabinet. “Knock yourself out.”

Stiles pulls open two drawers before finding one that contains clothes. He noses around in it, comes up with a navy blue sweatshirt that has _FBI_ printed across the back in big yellow letters. “Oh my God,” he says, pulling it over his head immediately. “I seriously can’t picture you in this.” The waistband of the hoodie falls past his ass. “Jesus. This is ridiculous. I keep forgetting how fucking tall you are.”

He turns around. McCall is lying back on the bed, pushed up onto his elbows, looking him up and down.

“Seriously?” Stiles says, looking down his body as well. “This is doing it for you?” McCall shrugs, but the look in his eyes is unmistakable. “This is totally doing it for you, isn’t it?”

“Don’t flatter yourself,” McCall says. “Come back here.”

“Well, if I don’t flatter myself, who’s gonna do it for me? You sure as hell aren’t,” Stiles mutters, but he goes over to the bed anyway and, after a moment’s hesitation, nestles himself against McCall’s side. McCall lets him, even moves back against the headboard so they’re more comfortable. He’s still scrolling through his emails but his other arm comes up to wrap around Stiles’ shoulders.

“Can I change the channel?” Stiles asks, grabbing for the remote control after McCall nods. He settles on Criminal Minds just to raise McCall’s hackles. McCall reprovingly taps his cheek when he notices, but he doesn’t say anything about it. His chest is rising and falling underneath Stiles’ cheek. The soothing rhythm of it should calm Stiles down but there’s still a hum of anxiety in his veins, an edge the orgasm hasn’t managed to take off for some reason. A vague hint of nausea at the back of his throat. He swallows, shifts, shifts again. He closes his eyes, tries to fall asleep, but he’s not tired enough. He clenches his hands to fists inside the oversized sleeves of McCall’s hoodie and looks at the TV again.

“What’s on your mind?” McCall asks, touching his hair.

“Nothing,” Stiles says.

“You seem on edge.”

“I’m always on edge,” Stiles snaps back, harsher than he means to. “Just not—” Not when I’m with you. “Not always around you.”

McCall’s fingers thread into his hair, but they don’t pull, don’t push. His palm feels warm against Stiles’ skull. Grounding. Good. It feels genuinely good, and it reminds Stiles of something he thought about earlier today.

“You know,” he says, “every time I see Scott after seeing you, I expect to feel guilty but I don’t. I just don’t. And last week, with my dad— I just. Why don’t I feel guilty about this?”

“I don’t know,” McCall says.

He doesn’t say, _because you’re fucked up_. He doesn’t say, _because you’re broken_.

He doesn’t say, _because you’ve got gallons of blood on your hands_. He doesn’t say, _because you killed Allison_. He doesn’t say, _because we found you in the woods, screaming your goddamn lungs out_. He doesn’t say, _everyone has it but no one can lose it everyone has it but no one can lose it everyone has it but no one can lose it what is it Stiles what is it_.

“Maybe because this is something you know you need,” McCall says after a while, and for once there’s no arrogance in his words, no undertone of smugness. It sounds almost wistful. It doesn’t sound like anything he’s ever said to Stiles before.

Stiles clears his throat. “Hey,” he says, “don’t flatter yourself, Agent McCall,” and McCall laughs and teasingly pushes his head down.

 

* * *

 

He’s playing GTA with Scott when Scott looks over at him and says, “You seem different lately.”

Stiles’ heart starts beating a little faster. “In what way?” he says.

Scott shrugs. “I don’t know,” he says. “Maybe— better, maybe.”

“Really?”

“Yeah,” Scott says. “I guess.”

Stiles swallows. His throat feels thick.

Scott smiles at him, cautiously. “Are you feeling better?” he asks.

His eyes look soft, hopeful, and Stiles thinks, what’s one more lie? What’s one more lie after all the unforgivable lies he’s been telling Scott, whether by omission or otherwise; after all the lies they’ve told their parents, their friends, their classmates, the authorities, the loved ones of everyone who got slaughtered in the hospital that night. After all the lies he’s learned to tell, what’s one more lie, a small lie, a white lie, a yes.

“I don’t know,” Stiles says.

Then again, maybe it wouldn’t be a lie, exactly.

“Yeah,” he says, just to try it out, to see how the word feels on his tongue, and he’s right; it doesn’t feel like a lie. Not exactly.

Stiles looks at Scott, smiles back at him, and it probably looks a little wry but it feels genuine enough for now. “Yeah,” he says. “Maybe— I think maybe I am starting to feel better.”

**Author's Note:**

> There's a substantial age difference in this; Stiles can be assumed to be about 18, McCall is about 40. Implicit and explicit references to anxiety, emotional instability, psychological repression, guilt and grief throughout. Self-destructive behavior includes drunk driving, alcohol abuse, smoking and brief instances of self-harm. All sexual acts are pre-negotiated and Stiles initiates the relationship, although it could be argued that he is in a state of mind that limits his capacity to consent.
> 
> Thank you llassah, eeames, loutheloup and lolafeist for cheering me on, supporting/sharing my Matthew Del Negro boner, and collectively making up approximately 90% of my expected readership. Special thanks goes to eeames for donating McCall’s FBI hoodie to this cause— much appreciated.
> 
> I’m also [on Tumblr](http://coffeeinallcaps.tumblr.com).


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